


Symbiosis

by yuuago



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Beekeeping, F/F, Fluff, Gardens & Gardening, Post-Canon, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-20 22:37:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6027943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuuago/pseuds/yuuago
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As they all work together, the two of them find their own ways to rebuild the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Symbiosis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Solovei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solovei/gifts).



> Treat recipient: I'm so glad you requested this pairing, it's so cute. :) Since your request was very open-ended, I hope this is okay. Have a wonderful day!

The Dag took to plants the way plants took to water. It was almost as if some of that old woman's soul had rubbed off on her. Maybe it had.

Getting organized in the early days was hard. But after a little while, Furiosa learned how to drive the Citadel, and that set everything on the right road.

The Dag took charge of the plants. She didn't announce it; she just slipped into those rooms, with the greenery, with the mist, and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

Cheedo followed her, and stayed by her side, and that was also the most natural thing in the world.

They were quite a pair. Cheedo looked up at her, that ghostly-pale woman who towered over her, with her long hands that seemed to swallow Cheedo's up when they linked fingers. There was something comforting about her gangling limbs, the way her arms would coil loosely around Cheedo's shoulders when they had their quiet moments together.

Some plants grew best when they were set alongside others; plants that were very different from themselves. Small, delicate flowers that craved the shade and protection of sturdy bushes.

Cheedo knew about this because she had read about it. Maybe, she thought as she carefully turned the pages of the old, decaying books, we are like this, the two of us.

It was a nice thought.

They had three books on gardening. In _that_ time, the time before their escape and return, they had been useless to them. But the pictures were nice to look at, slightly-faded but still beautiful. Now, Cheedo read each of them cover-to-cover and back again, searching for any information that might be of use for the Dag's plants, for her garden, for her projects.

The seeds that the Keeper had left them were not all labelled. The first time that Cheedo had been able to match one of them to the name of a plant in the books, the Dag had smiled so widely, at that moment Cheedo vowed to give ever seed its proper name.

"If you don't find one," the Dag said, "put it in some dirt. Make it grow and expose its revelation."

Then she kissed her, and that quieted the comment that Cheedo was going to make, that shouldn't they try to make sure they knew what they were doing, rather than just shove something in soil and see what happens?

It was all right, anyway. They had water and black earth and compost, and the Dag could make almost anything grow.

It was because of the words, the Dag said. She talked to them. Spoke to her plants every day as she tended to them. Whispered strange nothings to them when they were deep in their soil, before they even began to push their pale, searching sprouts up to the light. She talked to them as if they were people.

Cheedo tried it. Once. She waited until the Dag was out of hearing range, and then bent down to whisper.

"I think she's beautiful," she said, letting her eyes shift to the corner of the greenhouse where the Dag was deep in conversation with some radishes. "Don't you?"

The lettuce she'd posed the question to did not reply. Cheedo felt her cheeks flush bright red as she straightened and went to check the settings on the sprinklers instead. Even if she hadn't _expected_ it to say anything, part of her had hoped for a reply. The Dag always seemed to get one.

* * *

Something changed for her after the bees came.

There had always been bees. A few of them. Not enough. They lived in the lofty green tops of the Citadel, humming their way from plant to plant, dusting everything with pollen.

Cheedo knew about bees. She had read about them.

You couldn't have flowers without them. You couldn't have _anything_ without them. Not unless you wanted to pollinate everything yourself. And who could do that?

Things had changed so quickly in such a short time. Months. A year. Two. The rooms were open to her. Everything was open to her - including the top of the Citadel.

Cheedo navigated the stairs and finally stepped up into that now-familiar open air, the sky, the greenery. The Dag had come too, because here, too, she had plants of her own, hardy ones that drank in the sun.

There were flowers.

There were bees. A few of them.

Cheedo listened to the humming. She closed her eyes and felt the air on her face and listened. It wasn't quite like words. But it was close enough.

She stepped away from the Dag, far enough away that Cheedo was sure she couldn't hear her, and whispered, "I'm going to build you a home." She didn't understand the reply, but the humming _was_ a reply, or at least she decided it was.

Cheedo built the box in secret, referencing a slim volume that she had found tucked in with the gardening books. It wasn't that she thought anyone would criticize her for trying. But resources were precious, and what if it failed? So she put it together from scraps, things meant to be used in the greenhouse, odds and ends that hadn't been put together yet. The hive looked nothing like the pictures in her book - but it would have to do.

When she brought it up to the top, she did that in secret too. And as she set it in a safe, sheltered space, she said, in case the bees were listening, "I'll make sure the Dag plants lots of flowers for you. Okay? I read about what kind you like. So just - please come live here. Please?"

That night, as she rested in bed next to the Dag, with long arms draped around her, Cheedo waited, and hoped.

She didn't check on it. Not for a week. Not for two weeks. Not for three. Instead, Cheedo went about life the way she usually would: helping the Dag with her plants. Re-potting. Tending seedlings. She didn't talk to them, but she did sing, and that was as much to make up for not talking to them as it was for the way the Dag looked when she heard it, that small wonderful smile that always crossed her face.

They often went to the top to check on the plants there, but Cheedo didn't go near the hidden box, even when she noticed that there were more bees around them than usual.

"Curiouser and curiouser," the Dag muttered in response to the humming as she pulled off a gardening glove to stick her long fingertips into the soil, testing for moisture.

"We should plant more flowers," Cheedo blurted out. "Yellow and blue. Um, and purple."

"Yes?"

"Bees like those colours."

She didn't say more. The Dag did not ask, but her look suggested that she knew what Cheedo was talking about. Instead of speak, she beckoned Cheedo close, cupped her face, and kissed her.

When they parted, Cheedo rubbed the dirt left on her cheeks from the Dag's soil-streaked hands, and smiled.

* * *

Plants don't talk. About that, Cheedo was certain. At least, they never spoke to her.

Bees do talk. At least, they seemed to speak. And if she didn't understand what they were saying, that didn't mean they weren't saying anything at all.

Two months passed before the bees established themselves in her hive. The Dag did as she suggested, planted hardy flowers at the top, and coaxed more seedlings to join the others up above in the Citadel's open greenery. So many flowers. Yellow and blue. Other things as well; they were beginning to understand what would take up there, exposed as it was.

Then the bees came.

They settled.

They stayed.

Every morning, Cheedo went up to talk to them. Perhaps she didn't need to. But she wanted to. She wasn't starved for conversation; the Dag would always listen, and there were other women to talk to. But suddenly she understood why the Dag was always talking to her plants.

"We're going to expand the greenhouse," she told them, "and leave an open space so you can get in there. Isn't that great? We have more flowers in there. And there are flowers on the vegetable plants too, so maybe you'll like that. And -"

Long arms circled her waist. Cheedo stopped, startled, then turned her head to the side. Long, thin, pale blonde braids draped over her shoulder, a sharp contrast to her own dark hair. She tilted her head up a little, and there was the Dag.

"The Queen Bee has been keeping secrets." Words whispered by her ear. There was a laugh in the Dag's voice.

Cheedo felt her ears heating. "I wasn't sure they were going to move here," she murmured. "but I read about swarms and how to attract them and... I wanted to try."

"And you talk to them?" This seemed to be the most important part.

"Yes."

"Do they tell you their secrets?"

"Maybe. I think so." Cheedo paused. "...Yes," she said, leaning back against the tall, steady form holding her.

"Then you understand."

Cheedo closed her eyes and listened and breathed. She could hear the hum of the bees, the hush of breezes against leaves. She could smell the Dag, that scent she always had, greenery and damp earth.

"Yes."

She understood completely.


End file.
